Erik is a baseball fan who has been attending baseball games and snagging baseballs regularly since 2008.

5-21-11 PNC Park

Today was Amy and my 8 month anniversary, and we packed in a full day’s worth of activities. We started by going around to garage sales and buying lots of clothes for our daughter. There were some pretty nice things that we found that looked ‘like-new.’

Today was also Neil Walker bobblehead day, so a sellout crowd of 38,000 would be on hand. Therefore, it was important to get on the board early. When I ran into the left field bleachers, I found ball #1 laying in the front row in this area.

The Pirates BP was pretty tame, not too many home runs.

There weren’t many opportunities for toss up balls either, every request went ignored.

My second ball of the day was a long home run hit by an unknown Pirates batter.
Here Nick and I are racing for it.

Nick had the lead, but we both took a wrong route to the ball. Since it wasn’t at the bottom of the rotunda, I figured it was on the rotunda. I raced up and was correct. It was sitting on the rotunda, waiting to be claimed. Amy got this shot of us returning from the chase.

My third ball of the day was a clean catch in the front row of section 134. I had to reach out over the wall and make the catch as there was some pressure put on me from the side. I reached out and swiped at the ball and luckily made the catch.

Here I am just a moment after making the grab:

It was a particular sunny day, and I lost two balls in the sun. One would’ve been an easy grab, and it zipped by my head. The other I would’ve made on a cloudy day. That’s one of the negatives of PNC Park. Left field is the sun field, so folks in left get blinded by the sun, especially on fly balls.

I had another close call on a home run that was about two rows over my head. The guy in the white jersey reached out and caught it right in front of Nick:

I then changed into my Tigers gear, but it wouldn’t matter much since it got so crowded around 5PM.

Check out the crowd:
That’s the downfall of PNC Park’s bleachers. There’s not much room when it gets crowded. There’s about six rows in the bleachers, and they get packed, severaly limiting a ballhawk’s range.

I did get ball #4 with the glove trick in left field before heading over to center field.

In center field I glove tricked ball #5 here:

Also, while in center field, I caught an opposite field Miguel Cabrera home run ball in the third row here:

The guy in the red shirt, who’s usually aggressive, backed off and let me make the catch. I appreciated it, as I probably would’ve missed it had he tried for it. It was a ball I had to reach high and to my left to catch, as it was slicing back towards right field.

My seventh and final ball came at the conclusion of BP. The Tigers left a ball on the warning track in left field, so I went over and glove tricked it for my seventh ball of the day.

After BP, I went to turn in 54 tickets for Neil Walker bobbleheads. I traded in a bunch of my season tickets so I could turn a profit on the bobbleheads. I made the mistake of pulling out the tickets and counting how many I had. As soon as I did, I was surrounded by people waving twenty dollar bills at me, offering to buy my tickets. The game was sold out, so there was nothing left at the box office. I relented and sold twenty of the tickets within 5 minutes. So, I went back to my car with a pocket overflowing with cash and 34 bobbleheads. Amy and I headed home to spend the rest of the evening baseball free.

The following are trademarks or service marks of Major League Baseball entities and may be used only with permission of Major League Baseball Properties, Inc. or the relevant Major League Baseball entity: Major League, Major League Baseball, MLB, the silhouetted batter logo, World Series, National League, American League, Division Series, League Championship Series, All-Star Game, and the names, nicknames, logos, uniform designs, color combinations, and slogans designating the Major League Baseball clubs and entities, and their respective mascots, events and exhibitions.